The Intern Diaries: Samantha Angell

Samantha is a senior psychology and sociology major from Watertown, WI. She is conducting research this summer in the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Virginia as part of her involvement with the McNair Scholars Program. She is one of four Ripon College students sharing their stories of research internships and jobs over the course of this summer.

Work and Play

My official first week of work as an intern has begun!

I am working on a program under Dr. Jennifer LoCasale-Crouch on effective teachers in Pre-K. My research partner and I have not really started to dig deep into the work, but basically we will be studying teachers enrolled in an online course called Effective Classroom Interactions, or ECI. ECI has videos, readings, and activities designed to show teachers the best way to interact with their students and to teach them basic skills. Our mission is to find out if teachers who took the online course became better teachers overall. This means lots of reading, looking at data, and doing statistics for me!

But not everything has been about work since I’ve been in Virginia. The program coordinators have organized lots for us to do, and my summer roommates and I have spent the week exploring Charlottesville. In the past few days alone, we have:

1) Gotten lost while trying to use the bus system
2) Eaten the BEST dumplings I’ve ever had (Charlottesville is on the top 10 cities list of restaurants per capita – tons of great food here!)
3) Walked back from work in the pouring rain, many of us without umbrellas,
And 4) Walked around the Downtown Mall, which is a pedestrian street with great food, shopping, etc.

We also went on a tour of the UVA campus, which is full of history (see some of the many pictures I took below).
So far, the time I’ve spent here has been great. I can’t wait to delve even further into my project and see what else Charlottesville has to offer! Check in next week for more research and revelry!

This is the “Academical” Lawn, one of the original areas of the university. Only the most prestigious faculty and students live here. The buildings are so old, most student rooms don’t have plumbing and they have to walk to a communal bathroom!

One of the University of Virginia’s many libraries.

Part of one of the buildings on the Lawn. This particular area contains the cornerstone of the school, which Thomas Jefferson himself most likely laid.

The chalk wall at the Downtown Mall. Here anyone can write their thoughts for everyone in Charlottesville to see!